The year 2010 has barely begun and already 368 manatees have died, almost as much as the 429 that died in 2009. For those sweet rolly-polly gentle, elephantine, whiskered and grass-eating creatures, this is the largest die-off of manatees since Florida first started counting their deaths in 1974 after they were protected under Endangered Species Act. The Save the Manatees Club says prolonged low temperatures alone this year killed 193 manatees between January 1st and March 5.
When the weather warms and manatees start reemerging into Florida waters after wintering around the state’s warm springs and the warm waters of nuclear power plants, they will be very hungry. Fortunately this marine colossus is vegetarian. Save Our Manatees cautions boaters to the extra vigilant for the gentle giants.
Though Jacksonville’s resident indie-dance rock band Black Kids have been in exile writing material for a new record (and possibly a tune for the new “Twilight” sequel), they found some time last fall to tape a segment for ultra-hip kids TV show “Yo Gabba Gabba.”
The band (featuring former Folio Weekly staffers Owen Holmes and Kevin Snow) performed a special tune – “What’s Up Clown?” — for a circus-themed episode that also included guests Weird Al Yankovic and Sarah Silverman. The episode is scheduled to air on Monday, March 8 at 10:30 a.m. on Nickelodeon.
Meant to publish these videos when my Lime Street Fire feature, “Nightmare on Lime Street,” was published on February 23. The first video is news footage shot as Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department fought the fire on Oct. 16, 1990. The second video is from WJXT-Ch. 4, from the day that murder and arson charges were dropped against Gerald Wayne Lewis. The second video also includes footage of a duplicate fire that was set up by the State Attorney’s Office to test Lewis’ claim that the fire was an accident, and law enforcement’s theory that Lewis ignited it.
This week’s Editor’s Note in Folio Weekly talks about Flagler grad and former Folio Weekly cover boy Jeremy Dean’s new project: Back to the Futurama, which aims to convert Hummers into horse-drawn carriages of various styles. The New York Times has since picked up on the project, which was unveiled Sunday in Central Park, and which exhibits this week at the Pulse art fair in Manhattan.
Check out Dean’s project website here and watch the old timey promotional vid below:
As of March 1 at 12:01 a.m. homeowners facing foreclosure in Duval, Nassau and Clay counties are guaranteed an opportunity to try to work out a loan modification. A foreclosure can only proceed from the original filing to final judgment if lender and borrower can’t work out a settlement.
An administrative decree signed by the Fourth Judicial Circuit Court Chief Judge Donald Moran on Feb. 25 implements a Florida Supreme Court order aimed at decreasing the number of foreclosures through court-managed mediation. Each of Florida’s 20 judicial districts are required to set up pre-trial mediation for foreclosures on homesteaded properties.
Moran’s broadens the Supreme Court’s order by giving judges in the Fourth Judicial Circuit the discretion to order mediation on non-homesteaded residences as well as for foreclosures filed before March 1st. (Moran chose the Jacksonville Bar Association to administer the circuit’s mediation program in late February.)
The district’s program gives homeowners the right to demand documentation that foreclosure defense attorneys see as critical for fair negotiations. They can demand that the lender or loan servicer produce a history of loan payments, a current appraisal of a property’s value, a statement of the present value of a loan, as well as proof that whoever filed the foreclosure actually owns the mortgage and note and thus has standing to sue.
The order doesn’t spell out how homeowners will learn of these rights, however. It neglects to order mediation program manager to tell homeowners they can demand these documents.
Jacksonville architectural historian Wayne is lecturing tonight at the Jacksonville Historical Society on a time when Jacksonville dreamed in phantasmagorical. In 1887, Jacksonville built an edifice worthy of Florida fantasy to come when it built the elaborate Sub-Tropical Exposition on Main Street. The one-acre building was topped by minarets, included a fountain lit by electric lights and a Seminole Indian camp, two artificial lakes and a zoo. The impetus to build the Sub-Tropical Exposition was the loss of tourists to California. The Exposition would lure them back to Florida. The Jacksonville Historical Society is located at Old St. Andrews Church, 317 A. Philip Randolph Blvd. downtown. The lecture is free of charge and begins with a reception at 7 p.m.
Note: This is an update of an earlier post I accidentally deleted last night. The Jacksonville Aviation Authority’s Board of Directors voted to retain its current Airport Police Department rather than contract with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to provide policing on Monday. Correction: Early post said JAA’s 2010 budget was $1.5-million. It’s $3.8-million (Must have looked up wrong numerical code for the police in the budget.)
from metrojacksonville.com
With a bill from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to provide policing at Jacksonville International Airport topping $4.6-million, the JAA Board of Directors voted to keep its own Airport Police Department on Monday. JAA budged $3.8-million for safety and safety at JIA in 2010. With the JSO proposal on the table, the JAA administration finally acknowledged that the “current level of safety and security services” at the airport is “not acceptable.”
JAA has been running a skeleton operation for years that both officers and former Airport Police Chief Sedrick Rivers warned comprised airport security. After JSO said it would need 30 officers, four sergeants, one lieutenant and one community service officer to do the job adequately, JAA staff acknowledged the deficit. The staff report to the JAA Board recommended maintaining the Airport Police as well as a hiring nine additional officers and purchasing new communications and computer equipment. The newly-invigorated JAA police would also expand patrol to include the public parking facilities, the perimeter of the airport and all of the airports in the JAA system.
It’s frightening post-911 to think Jacksonville International Airport’s parking lots haven’t been patrolled by airport police and that there has been little or no police monitoring of smaller airports in the system. But the Airport Police Department has been losing officers for years and the JAA administration has not allowed the slots to be filled with new hires. There are currently 26 officers in the department. In June, Airport Police Chief Sedrick Rivers was forced to resign shortly after he submitted a report saying that airport security would be comprised unless JAA spent more money on equipment and increased the staff to at least 30 officers.
After he resigned, Rivers told Board members he’d ran afoul of airport administrators for refusing to muzzle airport police union president Donald Green and put a stop to his endless records requests. Rivers believed administrators retaliated by limiting his staff as well as refusing to buy new computers for officers to do background checks, even though the ones they were using were falling apart. Administrators also denied Rivers’ request to buy battery-powered security vehicles Both the T-3 Mobility vehicles and the computers would have been bought with drug forfeiture money.
Terrible picture taken by Gwynedd Stuart (take my word for it, the place was packed)
Shantytown Pub’s bigger baby brother bar, the Lomax Lodge, opened Monday evening to much fanfare from the greater Five Points area.
Owners Ian Ranne and Marianne Purcell did a great job of making the place lodge-like, and without any of the cruelty — rather than actual taxidermied animal heads, they commissioned artist Shaun Thurston to do an amazing mural of life-like, exotic animal heads that look like they’re mounted on the wall.
Also, there’s air hockey. Can’t go wrong with that.
The Charter Revision Commission agreed today it will declare the Duval County School system a failure and tell the Jacksonville City Council that it’s time for dramatic change. A majority of Commissioners voted Thursday to recommend that the city do away with an elected school board and restructure how the school system operates. Next Thursday, they’ll be discussing a list of specific recommendations to replace the elected board and possibly the entire public school administrative apparatus as far as I could figure.
Commissioners will codify a recommendation to to give Jacksonville’s mayor the authority to appoint several or all of the members of the seven-member school board. The idea is that the board members would be accountable to the mayor and that the city’s mayor can influence the direction of the school system with appointments. In that scenario, the bureaucracy would remain intact. The school board members would just be less independent of the city administration, but perhaps more willing to shake things up because they don’t have to worry about wooing voters.
It seems as though a number of Commissioners also support the idea of privatizing the school system entirely — changing it from a public school district to a charter school district. The name of the KIPP charter school was evoked multiple times as an example of a model charter program, almost as though KIPP came ready with the answer for Duval schools. KIPP is a national network of free college preparatory charter schools funded by state departments of education but operated privately. Commissioner William Catlin compared the hiring of a principal at a KIPP school to the rigorous review an attorney applying to work at Rogers Towers might undergo. Commissioner Jeanne Miller suggested that a charter system could run concurrently with the public schools until the whole district is privatized or charter-ized.
Perhaps at the Feb. 25th meeting, Commissioners will get into the meat of the problems charter schools can pose. Exploring the parental complaints that led to an investigation of at least one tone KIPP school, the KIPP Academy Fresno Charter School, might be a good place to start. An investigation by Fresno United School District determined the administrator of the KIPP Fresno school used “unwarranted physical force” or the “willful infliction of physical pain” to discipline students. Some of the disciplinary measures reported by students and school staff included taping a student to her chair; forcing students to stand for two hours in the sun inside of a circle drawn on the ground; and putting a trash can over a student’s head, saying “If you want to act like a clown you’ll look like a clown.” When the School District discussed removing the administrator, the KIPP Foundation said they would have to close the school because the particular administrator was part of the school’s charter. Hopefully, Duval won’t make the mistake of trading terrible for worse.
The Charter Revision Commission also voted Thursday to recommend that the city’s Ethics Code be enshrined in the City Charter and that the Ethics Code cover all of Jacksonville’s consolidated government and independent authorities. The Commission expects to submit its recommendations for changes of the City Charter to the City Council by the end of February.
New York magazine ran a three-page spread on Feb. 1st on The Urban Woodsman: “Dresses like Bunyon, acts like Thoreau, works in marketing.” I love diagrams of trends and this one is funny because it pictures a lifestyle commodified. This primer takes note of an urge toward a kind of rugged individualism and self-sufficiency — listing where to find classes in woodworking and butchering and tracking animals through Queens as it breaks down how those values are telegraphed by a pair of Red Wing boots, lumberjackets and facial fur.
